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posted on May 12th, 2012 at 12:34 PM
Very Early Porsche
I saw a magazine in January and don't remember what VW magazine it was in but there was an article about the "Prototype Porsche" which was more of
a hybrid VW/Porsche. There was only one built and it might be owned by Porsche still today, I was only able to thumb through the article. I should
have bought the magazine. I do know that this car was crashed pretty bad very early on but has been restored. Does anyone know what this vehicle is
named? I was very interested in the frame and the way the cross stuctures of the frame zig zagged. Let me know if you know what car I am thinking
of.
Thanks
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posted on May 12th, 2012 at 12:57 PM
Hmm... maybe talking about what was known as "Typ 64" I think, one of which was actually used as the Porsche family car through the war.
Designed for some pre-war road race... Berlin-Rome maybe. It was long before he'd designed the 356, longer and lower but can already see the DNA is
there....
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posted on May 12th, 2012 at 04:26 PM
It was in ultra VW - front cover was the german look Beetle.
That's the one Dave, some dude's recreated one in black
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posted on May 14th, 2012 at 08:51 PM
That's Porsche Typ 64 or the so called Berlin-Rome race car built for the 1939 race and based on the VW38. Three were built in 1938, one survives to
this day and another one was recently reconstructed by the Prototyp Museum - Hamburg in Germany. They used many genuine parts from the other two cars
and the rest was recreated by hand using the surviving car and original drawings/photos as a refference. The car uses beetle running gear and floorpan
with a purpose built body that sits on top of the chassis.
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posted on May 15th, 2012 at 05:24 AM
Nice pic's Undis, wow those things where ahead of their time! First pic I would imagine the thin verticle line between the front wheel and door are
for opening the hood but they look like they could be semiphores. Probably didn't have to indicate back then!
Just noticed the black car has one on the right hand side but the green one doesn't?!
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posted on May 15th, 2012 at 10:46 AM
Wow - didn't know that had been rebuilt - way cool !!!
All 3 cars would have had slight differences... they were prototype cars and completely hand built remember. Notice how "green" (which would be
silver pretty sure) and black cars are different around the windscreen (black doesn't seem to have the center crease), and both have the 3/4 windows
different shape/orientation to the original photo.
But really, who cars... they're both Sex on Wheels to me !!!
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posted on May 15th, 2012 at 12:54 PM
Here are some photos of it in the Porsche Museum in Stuttgart (with some other models in the shots as well).
Yogie
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posted on May 15th, 2012 at 02:03 PM
This is the text of an article on the Type 64 from the August 2011 issue of Club Veedub's magazine Zeitschrift:
Type 64 Sportwagen.
Being the first designer of the famous pre-war Auto Union grand prix cars, it’s not surprising that Dr Ferdinand Porsche had motor sport in his
veins. Equally, it’s also not surprising that Porsche also should imagine a faster version of the humble KdF-Wagen that he was working on in the
late 1930s.
In late 1937 Porsche first expressed his ideas for a sporty KdF-Wagen to Robert Ley and Bodo Lafferentz, the boss and his aide of the German Labour
Front (DAF) organization that was funding the ‘people’s car’ project. However, an expensive 150 km/h aluminium sports car did not appeal to the
DAF’s national socialistic ideals. Porsche contemplated producing it himself, but the vehicle would incorporate many Volkswagen components and the
DAF would not consider selling state parts to a private company.
Since he wasn’t able to interest the DAF, Porsche began to envisage his own, separate, sports car project. In mid-1938 Porsche Bureau designer Karl
Fröhlich drew up the Type 114, with the chassis drawings completed in early September. It had a longer wheelbase than the KdF-Wagen, of some 2700 mm
compared with 2400 mm, and a water-cooled 1.5-litre twin overhead cam V10 positioned ahead of the rear axle. Suspension was VW-like torsion bars front
and rear, Porsche’s own design protected by patent. A mini-Auto Union GP car! Franz Reimspeiss drew up a coupe body with three (!) front seats (the
mid-engine prevented any rear seat), with the driver in the centre. The similar Type 115 proposed using a mid-mounted Volkswagen engine but enlarged
to 1.1 litres and supercharged to produce 45-bhp. The Type 116 also proposed a VW engine, but enlarged to 1.5 litres. None of these projects, however,
progressed past the design stage.
The Type 64, however, was actually built. The totally accurate title is the 60K10 on a Type 64 chassis, where the 60’ refers to the Porsche Bureau
Type number for the Kdf-Wagen, and K10 is a body type number (K stands for ‘Karosserie’). K1 was the KdF-Wagen saloon with its original 985cc
engine, and K3, K6 and K7 were minor variations. K8 was the saloon with sunroof; K9 was the four-seat convertible, and K12 was a cross-country saloon
on the KdF-wagen chassis.
A sketch of the 60K10 was finished in late September 1938, and closely resembled the earlier Type 114/115/116. Unlike the ‘mini Auto Union’,
however, the 60K10 used the shorter standard KdF-Wagen chassis.
Dr. Porsche was able to convince the DAF on the idea of running the KdF-based high-performance car in the proposed 1939 Berlin-Rome race as a
publicity exercise. The DAF’s National Socialist Drivers’ Corps, whose president was Adolf Hühnlein, controlled all German motor sports.
Hühnlein agreed to the funding and construction of three prototypes for the race. The DAF realised that participation in the Berlin Rome race (the
first 600 km of which was to be run on the new autobahnen) would be a propaganda coup and boost sales of the KdF car.
Between the autumn of 1938 and early summer 1939, custom coachwork firm Reutter in Stuttgart built three Porsche 60K10 vehicles. The body was made
from hand-hammered aluminium on a reinforced KdF-wagen chassis. Although aerodynamic streamlining was paramount, the car still had to look as much as
possible like a Kdf-Wagen or the connection may have lost to the spectators. From the front it was very similar, while the rear with the small window
and ventilation slots, was similar to both the Type 114 and the KdF-wagen. In order to reduce the drag as much as possible, the streamlined light
metal aluminium bodywork was fitted with fully integrated wheel coverings.
The mechanicals of the 60K10 were pure KdF-wagen. It was equipped with the KdF’s floor plates, central tube platform frame, torsion bar axle at the
front and torsion bar sprung swing axles at the rear, as well as the shock absorbers and drum brakes from the Volkswagen. Unlike the midengined Type
114 the engine and gearbox were normal KdF-Wagen in layout. The re-bored 1.1 litre VW engine, with larger valves, increased compression and twin
carburettors, achieved 50 horsepower (compared to 24-bhp in the normal KdF-Wagen).
The car weighed 545 kg, 200 kg less than the normal KdF sedan. It reached a maximum speed of 145 km/h, and thanks to excellent testing results,
appeared to be absolutely ready for the forthcoming race.
However current affairs overtook the project when Hitler invaded Poland in September 1939, and Europe went to war. The Berlin-Rome race was cancelled,
as was all other forms of motor sport in Germany. The 60K10 never got to race in the event it was designed for.
The Porsche Bureau retained two of the three completed cars, while the third was given to Bodo Lafferentz of the DAF. Porsche and his son Ferry
frequently used the two 60K10s on the empty wartime autobahns to commute between the Bureau offices in Stuttgart and the Porsche family estate in Zell
Am See in Austria. Sometimes he also used the 60K10s to drive to Berlin on business – the Porsche Bureau was busier than ever in the early years of
the war with work on designing a multitude of vehicles, trucks, tanks and equipment for the war effort.
Bodo Lafferentz crashed and destroyed his 60K10 in a bad accident in 1940, which left just the two Porsche cars remaining. After some time one of them
continued on in daily use by the Porsche family, while the other was stored at the Zell Am See Flying School. The daily driver was painted in
camouflage war paint and fitted with military headlight blinders.
Both remaining 60K10s survived the war, but in May 1945 arriving American troops discovered the tiny coupe in storage at the Flying School, chopped
the top off, and used it for joyriding about for a few short weeks until the engine seized. The car was then scrapped.
The last remaining 60K10 remained in the hands of Ferry Porsche, who had the car fully restored by PininFarina in 1947. It was sold to Austrian
motorcycle racer Otto Matte in 1949 (just a year after the first Gmund Porsche 356 was introduced). Matte’s Type 64 ‘Aerocoupe’ gave Porsche
their first international win in the 1950 Alpine Rally. By this time its KdF/Volkswagen origins were forgotten, and it had been fully embraced as a
Porsche car – even down to having a ‘Porsche’ badge on the nose.
Matte drove the 60K10 in competition for the last time in 1982 at the Monterey Historic Races in Monterey, California, 32 years after its first race,
but in the years after the Aerocoupe was often shown at Porsche shows and parades in Europe and America.
Since then this historic vehicle has been bought back by Porsche, and painstakingly restored back to its pre-war appearance. It can be seen today in
the grand new Porsche Museum in Stuttgart, along with an impressive historical display of memorabilia. Porsche has also rebuilt two wooden body jigs
with samples, showing how the coupe’s aluminium body was made.
Whether you call it a sporty KdF-Wagen or the first-ever Porsche, or whether you call it the 60K10, or Type 64, or Sportwagen, or Aerocoupe, the ideas
it contained emerged in 1948 when Porsche began building cars in their own right. Whether a VW or a Porsche, it’s the great grandfather of all the
great Porsches that followed.
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posted on May 15th, 2012 at 07:52 PM
Great info there Phil!
The cars were slightly different to each other because they were especially built - not intended for production. The silvery blue one has gone through
a number of changes along the way, the biggest being converted to RHD because of Otto Mathes's medical condition.
